Newsday columnist Steve Marcus, apparently a member of some heretofore unknown temperance society out there on Long Island, flails around wildly in search of a rationale for continued bashing of the Duke lacrosse team. Reviewing the new book from fired Duke coach Mike Pressler: (Spoiler alert! Marcus didn’t think much of it!)

However, Yeager glosses over the match that lit the incendiary situation: That athletes from such a prestigious institution could do nothing better with a free spring night than engage in (mostly) underage drinking and sleazy entertainment more befitting the hard-up members of the population. Can’t Duke lacrosse players do better? Kids being kids doesn’t cut it. Yaeger also gives short shrift to a vile e-mail sent by one of the players as a pop culture reference that the un-hip didn’t understand. It was no more inexcusable than a Columbine joke.

First off, there’s nothing wrong with a well-crafted Columbine joke. Secondly … seriously, “no more inexcusable than?” It’s awful writing, and I think he has that backward there.

K.C. Johnson quite rightly takes issue with a different segment of the piece.

Marcus concluded his review by asserting, “Yaeger cites Pressler’s 100 percent graduation of Duke players as his crowning achievement. Someone [sic], I don’t think he’ll be remembered for that. It is highly irrelevant to the issue.”

Think about that statement for a minute: is it “highly irrelevant” for a 16-year college coach of a team that fields more than 40 players per squad to have had a 100 percent graduation rate?

The remark captures the odd nature of how many in the media (and, more important, at Duke) approached this case. Perhaps Marcus is a graduate of BYU or Liberty, where underage drinking is considered indicative of negative character. But at most colleges, academic achievement is generally seen as much more important than whether or not students consume alcohol. (I speak as someone who doesn’t drink.)

Before coming to Brooklyn, I taught at Williams College, and served two years on the college disciplinary committee. Almost all of our cases involved academic integrity issues–not underage drinking violations. Yet reflecting the Wonderland that was the lacrosse case, much of the media and the vocal element of the Duke professoriate acted as if drinking provided the key insight into students’ character, with academic performance–to borrow Marcus’ phrase–”highly irrelevant.”

Speaking as someone who does drink, I’m even more offended by such empty and overwhelmingly hypocritical posturing.